I'd say, don't look too much into where Coventry are this season as a measure of Robins as a manager.

I'm not saying it's perfect or even that it could work at Stoke, but simulating all Championship shots this season 100,000 times, Coventry are not a bottom half side.

On performances, you really can’t argue with that as a sacking.

Domination from Leeds. Stoke's inability to cover passing lanes out of possession exposed by a quality side.

As far as I can find, no Championship goalkeeper since they started recording Post-shot xG - a measure of how difficult a shot is to save - has come close to how good Viktor Johansson has been for Stoke this season.

An average shot-stopper would have conceded *11* more goals this season than he has

An upcoming piece this week. It won't be nice, but just as a quick preview:

I simulated every shot in the Championship 100,000 times:

In *99,700* of those simulations, Stoke conceded more goals than in real life.

A mixture of luck & Johansson, you can't rely on those forever.

Well, If you're wondering why Stoke fans are so concerned, and wondering why Narcís Pèlach had to come out and say he was changing some things in the defensive structure, erm...

This is why. That spike in xG against is gigantic, on already appalling underlying numbers.

Spotted that Tom Cannon has been nominated for Player of the Month.
His shots & passes for November below.

I'm not really sure I get this nomination from my end.

3 open play big chances, just the one open play goal. Not awful, but is it award-worthy?

Can't look past Borja Sainz for this, surely?

Delighted to announce two new features on my web app!
championshipdata.streamlit.app

Chalkboard: Show passes with arrows on a pitch. Fully customisable data as shown below!

Heatmap: Show the start/endpoints of passes as a coloured heatmap, compared with the league average or just with other zones

A switch to a back 3 today.
Extra centre back probably indicated more focus on defending the box, and allows a bit more freedom for Bocat/Tchamadeu with Stevens still recovering from Tuesday's game.
Big test for Pèlach's defensive plans, can they do it against a top side?

Whilst that is below what you’d expect in terms of the fraction of shots that are big chances, conceding *so many* high-value efforts on goal is an issue.
Restricting the opposition to largely shoot through bodies is one thing, but if you’re still conceding >2 big chances a game, that’s not good.

As Narcís Pèlach is keen to point out, conceding lots of shots doesn’t necessarily mean conceding ‘bad’ shots, and with lots of bodies in the box, Stoke certainly reduce the chance quality of the opposition.
But even so, they’re still conceding the 4th highest number of big chances in the league.

Stoke almost entirely vacate the area in front of their box centrally off the ball under Pèlach, and in several games the ease with which opponents can get to Stoke’s box centrally or wide, has been a huge worry. See potterlytics.blog/2024/11/02/c... for an in-depth look at this.

But then comes Stoke’s own half, when that front press does get beaten. Stoke drop *incredibly* deep and narrow, almost solely focusing on defending the box.
This leads to the huge number of opposition shots (and defensive actions in the box), but is it a good plan?

Attacking left to right, you see that Stoke’s front line of the press is fairly deep, forcing the ball wide and triggering in wide areas to compact space.
This is a function of Pèlach’s very narrow and compact 4-4-2 off the ball. All good so far.

But why is this happening? Well, whether on purpose or not, it’s a function of Stoke’s pressing plans. Looking below at how their defensive actions compare with the league average (red is more, blue is less), we get a good picture of that plan in a really simple visualisation.

Those defensive numbers in particular have been a big worry. Stoke having conceded the most shots in the league since Narcís Pèlach took over, as below.
Obviously shots aren’t the best metric, as Pèlach himself has said, but they’ve also conceded the 4th most xG in that period too.

Stoke are in a bit of an interesting spell at the minute, and there are some big questions to answer.

Whilst Stoke have only lost once in their last 8 league games, the rolling xG average plot shows their underlying numbers look pretty poor since Pèlach took over, even given the v small sample size

Here's a few examples of what can be generated (Stoke bias, sorry!)
Individual shots from Tom Cannon
Shots Assisted by Bae Jun-Ho
Shots from inside the box by Stoke's opponents since Narcís Pèlach took over.

**Customisable shotmaps for EFL Championship teams!**

Really delighted with the next step of my web app:
championshipdata.streamlit.app

Alongside match summary plots for every game, you can now generate customisable shot maps for any Championship side! A little demo video below shows how it works!